Winner 2021

Travel and Tourism

Brand

Tourism Australia

Entered by:

UM Sydney

LIVE from Aus

The Challenge

Bushfires, floods then a global pandemic had Australian tourism on its knees.

We needed to reignite the dream for travel in Australia to provide hope to an industry in crisis by:

  1. Increasing Australia’s intention to undertake domestic Australian travel.
  2. Facilitating international audiences to explore and experience Australia

Humans crave connection to others. But in a time of crisis, our ability to connect had been dramatically limited. Isolation creates dissonance with our very existence. In response, individuals search for new ways to establish routine and connection with their worlds. We set out to find the ‘where’ and the ‘how’ people were striving for connection.

Analysing rapidly evolving media consumption during lockdown, we discovered the world was in search of new forms of social interaction. News and personality anchored TV programming was up 17.4% YOY.  But the relationship between TV screens and social media was also changing. Once confined to mobile devices, live streams were now a form of escape and variety for living room entertainment. Social users were searching and streaming LIVE content, with Facebook LIVE and YouTube LIVE audiences tripling compared to pre COVID19 levels.

With travel unattainable, we needed to create something aspiring travellers could not get anywhere else. To reignite dreaming and kickstart planning for the future: Our strategy was simple.  Leverage pandemic led media behaviours to fulfill the need for connection by exploring the best of Australia and reigniting wanderlust.

The Creative Solution

Our Idea:
Live From Aus

A LIVE virtual Australian Holiday.

A live broadcast television event that continued into a full weekend schedule of LIVE Australian experiences streamed simultaneously to the world on Facebook and YouTube.

Broadcast directly to home-bound travellers in the comfort of their living room. Allowing them to explore and experience

Australia like never before.

We partnered with Channel 10 to create The Love Australia Project, a bespoke prime time program dedicated entirely to inspiring audiences towards planning their next Aussie holiday by spotlighting industry partners and operators. Tourism Australia hand selected more than 40 tourism operators to showcase the best of Australia.

Providing hope to the industry by allowing Aussie tourism operators to do what they do best. Inspire the world to see Australia once more.

To extend the invitation to explore Australia beyond TV programming, guides and hosts from every state and territory went LIVE on Tourism Australia’s Facebook and YouTube channels. In total, 32 hours of content was created and streamed in a single weekend, giving homebound viewers the opportunity to experience the very best of Australia from the safety of their couches.

The Media/Content Amplification Solution

Our 60min TV special event was just that!

Thanks to integrated networks branded promo’s, Billboards and in program alignments, The Love Australia Project reached 1.27 million Aussie viewers. Making it the 2nd highest rating non-news program of the day. And delivering a 20% uplift from time spot audience a week earlier.

As our television special closed, a global invitation extended our virtual holiday through Facebook and Youtube with 100,000+ people signing up to join us on our live streaming adventure.

Across 32 live streams, viewers experienced feeding crocs in Darwin, scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, a chopper flight over the Kimberley, exercising with Chris Hemsworth’s trainers in Byron Bay, singing along with The Wiggles in Sydney, cuddling koalas in Currumbin, parading with penguins on Phillip Island, playing trivia with Rove in Bondi, discovering dreamtime stories in Shark Bay and watching the sunset on Uluru.

All content was produced and premiered LIVE, giving viewers a unique chance to experience and interact with the most breathtaking parts of Australia from anywhere in the world.  Over 40 countries demonstrated their intent to visit with every comment, share, like and love as millions of homebound people around the world joined us for a virtual holiday experience around Australia.

The Result

In facilitating audiences exploring and experiencing Australia results were astounding.

The Love Australia Project gave a platform for industry to speak directly to 1.27 million Aussie viewers.

Aussies loved it with the program trending #1 nationally on Twitter.  International visitors took up the invitation to travel with 100,000+ people signing up for viewing reminders.  And they didn’t miss out!

6.6 million live, real-time views through LIVE streaming and 34 Million video views within 2 weeks.

It was a reminder of the incredible tourism experiences on offer in Australia and that our tourism industry looks forward to welcoming visitors again soon.

But most importantly for the industry and operators doing it tough right now, we increased Australia’s intention to undertake domestic travel.  +10% increase in those ‘very likely’ to undertake domestic travel when restrictions lifted (pre and post brand lift study).  International demand for Australia through booking partners increased +3%. The first positive change week on week following 12 weeks of falling demand. Kickstarting sustained demand growth for 6 consecutive weeks. (Adara’s Data Co-op -Expedia, Booking.com etc).

By inspiring the world to dream, our epic holiday gave hope to an industry facing an uncertain year ahead.